Everyone’s stressed!
I’m stressed, my dad’s stressed, and especially my dog because she lost her ball in the grass yesterday evening.
It seems like we live in a world of stress constantly being inundated with phone calls, texts, emails, and social media notifications.
It’s like we have to be “on” twenty-four hours a day.
We get home from the office and start checking our phones for emails and scroll through ten different social media websites watching everyone having the “best” times of their lives.
They’re actually passing a law in Australia where employers cannot expect employees to respond to emails or texts after working hours. I think this is a great step forward to create a better work-life balance.
Just to show you how bad stress can affect us, here is a list of typical symptoms of stress:
Physical Symptoms
- Headaches
- Muscle tension or pain
- Fatigue
- Sleep disturbances (insomnia or sleeping too much)
- Digestive issues (e.g., stomachaches, diarrhea)
- Rapid heartbeat
- Sweating
- Changes in appetite
- Emotional Symptoms
- Anxiety
- Irritability or anger
- Restlessness
- Feeling overwhelmed
- Sadness or depression
- Mood swings
Cognitive Symptoms
- Difficulty concentrating
- Memory problems
- Indecisiveness
- Constant worrying
Behavioural Symptoms
- Changes in eating habits
- Withdrawal from social activities
- Procrastination
- Substance abuse (alcohol, drugs)
Just reading all those symptoms stresses me out.
I did some research on how to manage stress and could list all the typical things that came up, but it’s nothing we haven’t heard before.
Instead, I’m going to talk about a few things I’ve found helpful in managing my own stress, considering this is one of the most stressful periods of my life as an addict in early sobriety.
I have two months of sobriety today! Congratulations to me.
Meditation has been key for me. I would be an absolute mess without it. I meditate once in the morning when I wake up and once in the evening before I get ready for bed.
I’ll also throw in short meditations throughout the day if something has me stressing out or my anxiety is higher than normal.
Here’s a guided meditation I use.
I’ll also do box breathing. This is a method of meditation where you get in a comfortable position and relax your body. You then breathe in with your stomach counting to four in your head, you hold for four seconds, breathe out for four seconds, hold for four seconds, and then repeat.
This is my favourite and can be done anywhere. Even at work if you’re stressed you can go to the bathroom and do it for five minutes to calm yourself down.
Exercise is also extremely effective for me when it comes to dealing with stress. If I exhaust my central nervous system through exercise I can’t overthink, right? Go science!
Exercising is different for everyone, I like heavy weight training sessions and all-out sprints. I find the heavier the intensity the more stress relief I get.
However, you should talk to your doctor and see what form of exercise is best for you with your current health situation.
Even light exercise is better than nothing so even if you just go for a brisk walk, you’ll get some relief from stress.
My third stress management tool is kind of specific to me and you may not be able to use it. I just play fetch with my dog. Seeing her happy and being outside is just an amazing way to let things go and be at peace.
My last stress management tip is journaling or some form of writing. I pretty much just journal and publish it on Medium for the world to see, but you can go old school with a pen and a pad.
There’s something about writing everything down that gives you clarity.
Better out than in.
You’ll also notice that most of the things you are stressing about aren’t as bad as you think and if they are serious writing them down will help you come up with a gameplan to tackle it, so you have a plan and aren’t freaking out, not having a clue what you’re going to do.
Stress is a killer.
Be proactive and start doing some of these things today. You won’t notice an immediate difference, all these things take time to work.
It’s one of those things where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. That’s an Aristotle quote.
It’s like each positive step you take to fight stress adds up providing relief. You just need to be consistent and don’t give up because you don’t notice immediate results.
Everything takes time, so be patient.
About the Creator
Patrick Meowler
Just a dude and his dog trying to stay sober. Writing about fitness, mental health, and recovery.
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Comments (1)
Excellent article, Thankyou! Totally 💯 stress rules the “modern age” congrats on your two month mark two! That is a bloody awesome milestone mate! 🙌⭐️